Want privacy? Get the hell off Facebook.

I almost never use Facebook. I never actually use Facebook for anything meaningful. The reason? As much as online privacy is a myth, Facebook doesn’t even pretend to pay attention. It changes settings on the fly and expects users to adjust accordingly, it makes settings that were previously private significantly less so, and most recently, its software allows for messages that used to be private to no longer be. Of course, Facebook denies that such a problem exists, but enough people are having that problem that it’s actually come to the attention of government officials. Oh, and more than one site has instructions for fixing the problem Facebook says doesn’t exist.

And yet, everything’s fine in Facebookland. Translation: If you expect or even want privacy of any kind, Facebook is not the answer. I’d actually consider deactivating my account over this, but the truth is, I personally don’t log in often enough to actually care. You might. If you do, or if you just want to cover your ass, here’s how to deactivate your account. Now hopefully they haven’t broken that too.

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